'Welcome home, Artemis': Crew celebrates historic 10-day moon mission

Artemis II took astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The four-person crew launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on April 1 for a 10-day journey, with the splashdown set for Friday off the California coast.

The history-making trip will pave the way for future Artemis missions intended to eventually see astronauts set foot on the moon and the building of a permanent lunar base.

Read more here about what you need to know regarding the Artemis II mission, including who the astronauts are and how to watch.

NASA's Artemis II mission is scheduled to launch today between 6:24 p.m. ET and 8:24 p.m. ET from Florida's Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B.

The crew of four astronauts – mission commander Reid Weisman, mission pilot Victor J. Glover Jr., and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen – will board the Orion crew capsule, dubbed Integrity, atop the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for a more than 600,000-mile, 10-day journey around the moon to test critical spacecraft systems ahead of the Artemis IV mission, which is intended to land astronauts near the moon's South Pole, a region never explored by humans, in 2028.

At mission's end, Orion will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, with recovery operations conducted by the U.S. Navy and NASA.